Ingram: USF1 Won’t Make Grid in Bahrain?

The news that they will not compete may come as a surprise to USF1 owners Ken Anderson, left, and Peter Windsor, and their prospective driver, Jose Maria Lopze, center. (File photo courtesy of USF1)

By Jonathan Ingram | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com

From the Monday Morning Crew Chief:

This just in from Europe: America’s new Formula One team may not make it to the grid in Bahrain next March to open the 2010 season.

Yawn.

There never seems to be enough of the usual scandal, Machiavellian machinations, Flavio factoids and Bernie bits to fulfill the demands for the latest word in F1. Schumacher officially returns one day, the US and Spain won’t send cars to Bahrain the next. It’s all on the same scale of ultra-drama according to the news mavens and havens of F1.

Even one Bernard Charles Ecclestone has gotten into what has been a long-playing act. Like any run-of-the-mill politician, the man in charge of commercial rights for F1 is hedging the bet on new blood arriving in F1. Some will make it, he says, some may not.

The flatfoots down the street from Fleet, who are also in the business of hedging bets from time to time when it comes to future events, have smoked out the details. The US F1 and Campos teams are the ones Ecclestone is worried about, they say.

Hmmmm.

Should any of the four new teams not make it – which is anybody’s guess at this moment – then Ecclestone will have defused the story of F1’s new era falling on its face, at least in Round 1 at Bahrain. (Following the departure of former FIA president Max Mosley, the concept of cost-effective F1 racing now belongs to Ecclestone.)

All this time, I thought the realm of F1 was so sophisticated. Instead, the upper crust and the insiders are falling all over one another to ply the prejudices of the proles and everyday punters who buy the majority of tickets and are the largest category of TV viewers around the world. The Yanks and the Spaniards may not show up after all. Funny how the new British-built entries like Virgin F1 and Lotus are left out of the speculations, eh?

Sorry. These are reliable news reports, not speculations. There’s been hoardes of paparazzi, snoops, mountebanks, soliders of fortune and second story men secretly flying into the airport on Billy Graham Parkway in Charlotte to scope out the facilities and operations at the headquarters of US F1. After combing through the trash bins outside the team’s facility for shards of carbon fiber evidence and finding none, they’ve gone on to discover that the technology of NASCAR Valley is all a big hoax. It’s still a bunch of lintheads putting cars together with tube frames and tobacco juice while running a little ‘shine on the side.

Meanwhile, back in Italy, the current sophistry concerns Michael Schumacher’s twin. To keep the tifosi, i.e. the Italian proles and punters, from turning angry rage upon the national team at Ferrari, Luca di Montezemolo has declared Schumacher to be of two minds about competing in F1 or staying with Ferrari as a figurehead. The seven-time champion (including five straight at Ferrari) may drive for Mercedes, said Montezemolo, but Ferrari will be in his heart.

Now that’s some serious hedging. (There seems to be a theme here: don’t blame me, says the domo, I’m merely in charge.)

At least there’s been some seriously funny stuff, too, on the Internet recently when it comes to the next American F1 entry being produced in Charlotte. Take, for example, the cartoon of a Sprint Cup car with an F1 machine drawn on the doors and quarterpanels, representing the first known sighting of US F1’s new car.

Speaking only for myself, I’m not sure I would swear on the soul of Billy Graham that everybody signed up for the grid in Bahrain will be on the grid in Bahrain. My twin, on the other hand, has seen the new video at USF1.com and he says… .

—

E-mail of the week: My friend Tom Schultz dropped off this missive on the subject of Jimmie Johnson’s four straight NASCAR championships being the story of the year – and of the decade.

“Come on now, you have to be kidding? Jimmy Johnson winning four straight the top story of the decade? Good grief. Have you forgotten Michael Schumacher winning five straight World Championships, and at a much higher level? Not to mention that under a more legitimate scoring system, not the contrived, show biz ‘Chase’ system, Johnson would have won but two.

“Many other stories would qualify for best of the decade (even though the decade has one year to go). Castroneves winning Indy three times, the long decline and eventual folding of CART/Champ Car as Tony George wins a war far more protracted than he imagined, the sudden revolt in the Hulman-George family with Tony being thrown out, the peaking and start of the decline of NASCAR, and so on.

“As far as the story of the year, I have no doubts in my mind. The totally unprecedented and unexpected triumph of Brawn GP in the World Championship. Couple that to the fact that of the 17 World Championship Grands Prix, only three were won by teams that have won before, while an astounding eight were taken by Brawn and six by Red Bull. Totally unexpected, unprecedented, and astonishing. That dwarfs by far any activity in the WWF on wheels here in the U.S.”

Thanks man – and next time let me know how you really see it. From the perspective here, Schumacher usually only had to beat his teammates during his championship skein at Ferrari and, well, words escape me on that subject.

As for Brawn GP, I’d put Ferrari and McLaren running the entire season with KERS – and winning – ahead of that story.

As for the decade, yes, more to come. I still think Johnson will win a fifth straight title and that the Chase format is more difficult to win, not easier.

5 Comments »

Michael Schumacher brought the car to a level that he made it seem like he only had his teammate to beat, which was a fact. Barrichello only snatched 2 second place in world championship during the 5 consecutive years Schumacher won, meaning that world championship might have been only won twice out of five times if Ferrari had 2 identical Barrichello, in lieu of one of them being Michael Schumacher.

Jimmy Johnson’s 4 straight wins might be the story of the decade in states, but incontestable on a worldwide scale in any sense, and even by all your standards (counting 2010 as the end of the decade instead of 2009, so that Johnson wins another champion, equaling Schumacher’s 5 straight titles), it is still at a lower level than Formula one, AND under an absurd points system which saw Kurt Busch winning the first of many absurd years of those absurdity to come.

Lastly, I shall raise a question as to why the so-called journalists including this Jonathan Ingram with their logic being as good as a random teenager posting on the internet, could get to earn the bread and butters off of it. I think this is a more interesting topic to argue about.

The mole would be too ashamed to post that article without having a Penelope or two written in for back up.

By the way the first decade of the 21st century ends this week 2000 – 2009. Count it out on your fingers. ;)

The continuation of the Schumacher myths here is an amusement.

The story in F1 over the last decade was the continued gutting of what made it the best racing series in the world under the misguided, at best, direction of Max Mosley.

The best news story for F1 over the last year has to be the long overdue end of Max’s reign of idiocy and blind arrogance.
He did make Jean Marie Balestre look far better in the rear view mirror of history.

“Schumacher usually only had to beat his teammates during his championship skein at Ferrari….”

Not only that but they had the “advantage” of many FIA/WMSC rulings that if against another team would have gone the other way.

If the emailer wants to argue the F1 story of the decade I’d submit the “Nelson Piquet crashes on purpose” saga/scandal, that not only endangered fans and drivers alike, but also seriously effected the outcome of that years World Champion.